There are a few ways you could mark a dance (technical aspects aside)

They could mark it "absolutely", you mark 'only' what you see on the night (how they would mark professionals i expect)

They could mark it "relatively" (against something else) e.g.:


They could mark the dances 'of the night' against each other, in order, like a race - difficult to mark one runner when you haven't seen all the others yet - i think Len likes to mark this way and hence why he finds it frustrating at times

They could mark progression over the whole competition (one couples 'journey') - which would explain some strange marking on-the-night

Claudia actually asked Arlene basically the same question but she blurrred all the aspects together

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I think they are using a combination of all of those criteria depending on which dancer they are marking.

Len, in particular, tends to concentrate on technicality, which is a bit rubbish in my opinion as they are not professional dancers and some things take years to perfect.

Bruno tends to mark on whether a dance 'wows' him or not, which is as good a reason as any I suppose.

I don't know how they could use any markers that would work every week for every dancer. I suppose they have their favourites just as we do and they cannot help but take that into account too.

I would like to see the marks being given after all the celebrities have danced. At least that way we could hope for some sort of ranking. Although I doubt it.

I've come to the point to conclue that the judges don't have any criteria or standard. They are just trying to be as controversial as they possibly can, which may have some effect on public vote. Actually I wouldn't be surprised that they are being told to be unfair, unprofessional and completely biased. If BBC doesn't like it they'd have get rid of them after so many years, not to raise their pay by 300%.

Craig tends to look at the performance in question on the night and is the most sensible.

Arlene does a reasonable job. But she does gush too much and have her faves. Jill, Ramps. Usually her faves ARE the best dancers though so why not?

Len has his faves. He loves sportsmen. I think he has a soft spot for the more mature dancer and expects a lot of the youngsters. His marking tends to be more pre-conceived than Arlene or Craig. He uses a very narrow range of marks that does not reflect the range of abilities or performances. John's 6 last night was frankly ridiculous.

Bruno likes the young ladies - a sucker for a bit of sparkle! When he goes OTT he sure goes OTT. He looks more for performance than technique on the whole. That's why he gave Kelly and Brendan 10 for the illegal lifts. I liked that dance too but he shouldn't have given them 10 for all the reasons we've trotted out a million times before.

I rate Craig as my top judge. He tries to be impartial and gives good notes.

I thought the judges did a pretty good job last night, apart from Tom's paso which I thought was overmarked I agreed with their scoring I would have put Austin, Lisa and Rachel the top three, and imo the bottom three were spot on, John, Andrew and Heather.

I can't disagree more with Craig. Craig is the most biased and unfair judges who is trying so hard to be SCD Simon Cowell. At least Cowell make money from being mean and nasty and Craig just a hateful person (who seems to be out of work for a while as he's interviewed like every single day in all sort of programme).